1 00:00:07,639 --> 00:00:12,480 We need to find more smarter ways of building data centers and more efficient and 2 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:26,960 sustainable ways of building NATA centers. Welcome everyone to the Industrial Security Podcast. 3 00:00:27,079 --> 00:00:31,120 My name is Nate Nelson. I'm here with Andrew Ginter, the vice president 4 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:36,759 of Industrial Security at Waterfall Security Solutions, who's going to discuss the subject and 5 00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:41,320 guest of today's show. Andrew, how are you? I'm very well, 6 00:00:41,359 --> 00:00:45,479 Thank you, Nate. Our guest today is Vlad Gabriel Unhel. He is 7 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:51,960 the global product manager at Data Center Dynamics Academy or DC Academy for short. 8 00:00:52,679 --> 00:00:54,920 It's a bit of a mouthful, you know, but what he's going to 9 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:00,119 be talking about is industrial cybersecurity at data centers. And you know, data 10 00:01:00,159 --> 00:01:04,519 centers are about more than just protecting the information. I mean, obviously that's 11 00:01:04,599 --> 00:01:10,920 very important, but it's also all about physical operations and you know, electric 12 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,719 power and cooling. Lad develops educational programs that are focused on data centers, 13 00:01:17,079 --> 00:01:23,439 and industrial cybersecurity is a very important topic in the data center space. All 14 00:01:23,519 --> 00:01:27,959 right, a new subject for us. Let's get right into it. Hello, 15 00:01:29,079 --> 00:01:32,280 Lad, and welcome to the show. Before we get started, can 16 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,480 you say a few words about your background and about the good work that you're 17 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:40,159 doing at Data Center Dynamics of course. Andrew, first of all, thanks 18 00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:45,239 thanks for having me. I'm Blood. I'm the global product manager at Data 19 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:49,239 Center Dynamics is training arm which is known as DCD Academy. I've been around 20 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:53,400 the digital infrastructure industry for about a decade now, and I don't think that 21 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:57,799 will change anytime soon, as I essentially have a deep passion for pretty much 22 00:01:57,799 --> 00:02:04,799 everything digital structure and especially data centers. I would think are by heart and 23 00:02:04,879 --> 00:02:07,879 a problem solver by trade, and as well as that, during my high 24 00:02:07,879 --> 00:02:15,360 school years I was I became a Cisco certified network Associate both in routing and 25 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:23,240 switching and in security. So naturally I now put my efforts together to ensure 26 00:02:23,319 --> 00:02:29,719 that the next generation of data center professionals are equipped with the knowledge required to 27 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:34,159 run these complex technical facilities. So yeah, and I'm not Stull, that's 28 00:02:34,159 --> 00:02:38,039 me. Thanks for that. You know, our topic today is data centers 29 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:43,879 and and we've never had anybody on from the world of data centers. Can 30 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:46,479 you, you know, sort of give us the big picture what what's a 31 00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:51,080 data center look like? Physically? And you know, what are what are 32 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:53,280 you know, what are the operating priorities. I mean at a power plant, 33 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:58,240 everybody's worried about safety first. You know, what's it? What's it 34 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,639 like working in a data center? Right? I mean, as I said 35 00:03:01,719 --> 00:03:07,199 it's previously. I always want to whenever I get into this this type of 36 00:03:07,199 --> 00:03:09,680 discussion, I always I always say, what is a data center? Could 37 00:03:09,719 --> 00:03:13,759 be? It's the simplest question, but it has the most complicated answer. 38 00:03:14,039 --> 00:03:19,719 In short, it's a technical facility where business stores, processes, and disseminates 39 00:03:19,759 --> 00:03:25,199 its data. Now this can look on the outside, they essentially kind of 40 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:30,319 look the same. They are warehouses. You wouldn't even be able to figure 41 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:35,199 out that there are that's a computing warehouse. Ort to say, there are 42 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,280 multiple types of data centers. We're not We're not going to cover all of 43 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:43,319 them, but they vary based on the business that that is using them. 44 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,879 Right now, because of the advent of the cloud, and because because of 45 00:03:49,879 --> 00:03:54,000 the advent of Internet of Things five G and now AI, one of the 46 00:03:54,039 --> 00:04:00,719 main things that we're seeing within the industry is the hyper scale segments. So 47 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:05,159 the cloud providers, essentially cloud services providers, essentially they do not they're not 48 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:11,719 able to keep up. They're not able to bring bring these facilities, bring 49 00:04:11,759 --> 00:04:15,079 these facilities around quick enough. And when you add that, when you add 50 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:18,920 into the mix that there's a talent shortage in this industry, the problem becomes 51 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:24,839 quite quite big. One of the main things that the data center always needs 52 00:04:24,959 --> 00:04:30,680 to needs to do is what we internally within within the industry call needs to 53 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:38,360 be available. So availability is paramount. When a data center goes down or 54 00:04:38,439 --> 00:04:42,800 when the IT load that the data center supports go down, there are a 55 00:04:42,959 --> 00:04:47,439 number of repercussions. First and foremost there can be contractual repercussions, so definitely 56 00:04:47,439 --> 00:04:51,439 a financial it will take a financial hit, and as well as that, 57 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:59,040 there can be a reputational repercussions. Let's take for example, trustity example of 58 00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:01,560 a bank. If the banks data center goes down, you're not going to 59 00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:06,199 be able to check your account balance, or you might miss a payment that 60 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:10,959 you need to do for your mortgage for example, and so on and so 61 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:16,680 forth. So this the data center going down has a massive, massive impact 62 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:24,360 on both, as I said, the reputational and the financial financial outcome of 63 00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:28,519 of of a business. So that makes sense. I mean that is the 64 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:30,439 picture I have of a data center of you know, racks of computers inside 65 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,720 and and you know a warehouse looking thing outside. But you know this is 66 00:05:34,759 --> 00:05:40,040 the Industrial Security podcast. Can you talk about you know, what's on the 67 00:05:40,079 --> 00:05:46,399 inside. There's obviously computers, but there's also infrastructure. What's what's that infrastructure 68 00:05:46,399 --> 00:05:49,000 look like, what's the automation on the on the infrastructure side look like? 69 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:56,360 And what are the security concerns? Certainly, I mean to begin with, 70 00:05:56,519 --> 00:06:02,480 every single data center is going to have to what we call spaces within within 71 00:06:02,519 --> 00:06:05,800 the industry. Right, every data center is going to be split into the 72 00:06:05,879 --> 00:06:12,680 y space and the great space gray space. The white space is essentially the 73 00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:16,639 what you can see as the IT room is essentially the place where your story, 74 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:21,720 your servers, your switches, your networking gear, and everything in between. 75 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:28,480 And the gray space is everything that keeps this that keeps the white space 76 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:31,879 alive. Sort to say, I always have an analogy when when presenting this 77 00:06:32,079 --> 00:06:35,879 to to some students. You need to look at the why space as the 78 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:41,360 brain and the gray space as pretty much everything else in terms of lungs, 79 00:06:41,439 --> 00:06:45,920 stomach, heart and everything else that allows the brain to function. When it 80 00:06:45,959 --> 00:06:50,000 comes to when it comes to what's what's inside the gray space? Because as 81 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:56,000 you said, we're talking industrial security within within the gray space, you've got 82 00:06:56,040 --> 00:07:00,240 the power distribution system. You also have the environmental troll system or the coding 83 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:06,600 system simply because and obviously all the other like control systems and softwares, these 84 00:07:06,639 --> 00:07:15,160 are usually managed through through a Skada instance, and because we've got because as 85 00:07:15,199 --> 00:07:17,800 I said, as I said previously hyper scalers for example, but not just 86 00:07:17,879 --> 00:07:21,639 that, like pretty much every sector within this market cannot build them fast enough. 87 00:07:23,879 --> 00:07:30,480 You now end up with facility managers that previously we're tasked with managing one 88 00:07:30,519 --> 00:07:35,160 facility are now tasked with managing five or more facilities now in order to be 89 00:07:35,199 --> 00:07:39,879 able to do this, because you can't be in the same place five times. 90 00:07:40,639 --> 00:07:45,439 The whole gray space and the whole equipment within the gray space, it's 91 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:50,040 is now connected to the Internet. Now. Again, as there's this separation 92 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:56,519 between white space and gray space, so is the separations of the professionals working 93 00:07:56,680 --> 00:08:03,279 within these spaces. You'll always you'll almost always find it professionals within the white 94 00:08:03,319 --> 00:08:09,639 space that are aware of cybersecurity in general and understand what the what the surface, 95 00:08:09,399 --> 00:08:13,759 what what what the risks are when connecting a device to the Internet. 96 00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:18,720 Whereas on the operational technology side, or on in or within within the gray 97 00:08:18,759 --> 00:08:24,680 space, that is not am that is not common knowledge. So you do 98 00:08:24,879 --> 00:08:30,759 risk of having pretty much your whole, your whole if if not taken care 99 00:08:30,839 --> 00:08:33,840 of, you've got your whole, your whole gray space, or your the 100 00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:37,120 whole infrastructure that keeps the white space alive prone to the same type of attack 101 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:43,960 vectors that you can find within the IT space. A classic example, we 102 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:46,720 all know it, and I'm sure it's been talked previously in in in in 103 00:08:46,759 --> 00:08:54,000 previous episodes, the stacks net stacks Neet incident was exactly was exactly that was 104 00:08:54,879 --> 00:09:01,559 a worm that's essentially buried into Zeman's PLC and then have a knock on effect 105 00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:07,480 on everything else that those those controls were well controlling lack of a better world 106 00:09:07,639 --> 00:09:11,279 word, So the same, the same, the same thing can can easily 107 00:09:11,279 --> 00:09:16,240 happen within the data center. And as we mentioned previously, you do not 108 00:09:16,360 --> 00:09:26,240 mentioned the D word or downtime. I think an important element of this whole 109 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:33,000 discussion is that somewhere north of like ninety five percent of organizations now use cloud 110 00:09:33,039 --> 00:09:39,000 computing, and the security of these environments is definitely on the radar of a 111 00:09:39,039 --> 00:09:43,600 lot of folks. Just this last Friday, when we're recording this podcast, 112 00:09:45,759 --> 00:09:52,240 the Department of Homeland Security announced that it's doing this whole cloud security investigation review, 113 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:58,720 partly inspired by the fact that Microsoft recently was it's it's cloud infrastructure was 114 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:05,120 breached by Chinese threat actors. So it's clearly on the radar of many people 115 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:11,759 and something that needs to be addressed. That's right. In a lot of 116 00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:22,000 jurisdictions, data centers and you know, similar facilities are considered critical information infrastructure, 117 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:26,840 and so when there's reliability issues at these facilities, it's not just you 118 00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:30,840 know, financial concerns and contractual concerns. A lot of the time, the 119 00:10:30,919 --> 00:10:35,039 government is looking over your shoulder, breathing down your neck, because this is 120 00:10:35,159 --> 00:10:39,000 critical infrastructure. When when this kind of infrastructure drops, it's not just the 121 00:10:39,039 --> 00:10:43,360 business that suffers. It is society that suffers. It is commerce that suffers, 122 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:48,639 it is government that suffers. Yeah, although it occurs to me when 123 00:10:48,639 --> 00:10:56,200 you say that that in the Microsoft case, the attackers are going after information, 124 00:10:56,159 --> 00:11:01,960 it seems like what you're talking about has more to do with reliability of 125 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:05,600 these data centers. Now, I've some vague understanding that there are plenty of 126 00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:11,440 data centers out there with huge amounts of computing resources where maybe even if one 127 00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:16,559 does go down, the load can be transferred to another, or two, 128 00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:20,600 three, or four of others. Is that not the case? I think 129 00:11:20,799 --> 00:11:26,320 generally it is. And you know, this is this is reaching sort of 130 00:11:26,320 --> 00:11:31,960 the borders of my knowledge here, But I do understand that in some jurisdictions, 131 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:35,840 certainly the United States, I think, I think Europe as well, 132 00:11:37,039 --> 00:11:43,679 in some jurisdictions you're not allowed to move customer data out of the country or 133 00:11:43,759 --> 00:11:50,799 out of the jurisdiction in the case of the European Union, and so that 134 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:56,360 would tend to reduce the number of data centers that could serve as your backups 135 00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:03,679 for those critical functions. Now, again, I don't know which jurisdictions in 136 00:12:03,759 --> 00:12:07,039 the world have these rules. I don't track this, but you know, 137 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:11,679 hypothetically, if you had a smaller jurisdiction, they only had two or three 138 00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:16,919 or four data centers in let's say the country, and one of them fails, 139 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:22,679 you've lost twenty five percent of your processing capacity. You don't have as 140 00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:26,919 many options for some of those critical functions because of the law. It actually 141 00:12:26,919 --> 00:12:33,480 reminds me of a conversation that I was having with some folks at a major 142 00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:41,039 software company, software as a service provider, who we're talking about Black Friday, 143 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:46,440 when everybody is on the internet all at once that whole weekend, and 144 00:12:46,519 --> 00:12:52,960 it's sort of like just there's so much less resource to go around. So 145 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,759 they have to solve this massive problem of how do we use the same amount 146 00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:01,320 of infrastructure to serve this many people. And they were talking about especially because 147 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:05,120 you know, these centers can become overloaded and could cause one of them to 148 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:09,159 go down. What happens in the worst case scenario, you don't want everybody's 149 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:16,360 shopping websites to go down all at once. And just the sheer magnitude of 150 00:13:16,399 --> 00:13:22,240 the logistical challenge involved was impressive and intimidating. So I get the sense that 151 00:13:22,279 --> 00:13:28,120 there isn't a ton of unused infrastructure available even in the cases where you don't 152 00:13:28,159 --> 00:13:35,039 have those regulations in place. And that's certainly true. You know, when 153 00:13:35,759 --> 00:13:39,039 you know in Black Friday, you know certain days or times of the day 154 00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:43,440 or times of the year where yeah, even if you have a lot of 155 00:13:43,519 --> 00:13:46,600 data centers around, there may not be that much separic capacity. Again, 156 00:13:46,679 --> 00:13:52,720 critical information infrastructure is sort of the message here. Has an impact on the 157 00:13:52,759 --> 00:13:56,559 business operating the infrastructure, but it also has an impact on society, so 158 00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:58,879 you know, this is this is the new reality. I'm just glad that 159 00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:05,320 the cloud is upright now because our podcasting software uses that for backup files. 160 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:15,000 So thanks to everybody out there doing Vlad's work. Yes. Indeed, the 161 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:18,720 latest numbers in the twenty twenty three Threat Report on OT cyber incidents show that 162 00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:24,840 the threat environment has changed fundamentally. At the beginning of this decade, OT 163 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:30,759 cyber attacks with physical consequences have changed from a theoretical problem to a very real 164 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:35,720 problem, more than doubling every year. The new report is focused on deliberate 165 00:14:35,759 --> 00:14:39,840 cyber attacks in the public record. These are attacks that cause physical consequences and 166 00:14:39,919 --> 00:14:45,919 process industries and discrete manufacturing. Most of these attacks are ransomware, though the 167 00:14:45,919 --> 00:14:50,240 fraction of activist attacks is growing, and the report's appendix includes a complete list 168 00:14:50,399 --> 00:14:54,799 of all cyber attacks since Stuck's Net that meet these criteria. To see how 169 00:14:54,879 --> 00:15:00,279 today's OT cyber threat environment has changed, I invite you to download the report. 170 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:05,919 A joint effort between Waterfall Security and the ICs drive ot Incident repository. 171 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:11,600 You can download the report at Waterfall dash Security dot com slash twenty twenty three 172 00:15:11,720 --> 00:15:16,320 dash Threat dash Report, or just go to the resources menu at the Waterfall 173 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:22,200 Security site and click on white papers and ebooks. Okay, so you know 174 00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:28,960 preventing outages reliability is king. But you said, you know we're connecting these 175 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:35,240 things to the internet. You've got remote teams. Can we talk about the 176 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:39,200 data? What data is moving out to the to the IT networks, What 177 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:43,639 data is moving out to the internet, What are people looking at remotely? 178 00:15:43,679 --> 00:15:48,000 What are people using remotely? Why? Why do any of this? That's 179 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:54,120 a great question, and well, in a nutshell, I would say it's 180 00:15:54,320 --> 00:16:02,000 it's essentially remote management and ensuring that all the operator like ensuring that the facility 181 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:07,759 is within normal operating parameters. I'll give an example. Most of most of 182 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:14,000 outages that happen within our industry are usually related to a power failure. But 183 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:18,159 that power failure can happen in many ways. It can happen because of human 184 00:16:18,279 --> 00:16:23,120 error. It can happen because a static transfer switching or an automatic transfer switch 185 00:16:23,279 --> 00:16:27,639 failed to switch from the utility to the backup generators that are on site. 186 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:34,240 It can be loads of things when and again we're talking about mechanical and electrical 187 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:41,360 systems. Mechanical systems will always be prone to failure. Most data centers right 188 00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:48,039 now are still being called using air. That air obviously needs to be needs 189 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,039 to be funneled through to the actual servers at a particular temperature and not a 190 00:16:52,120 --> 00:17:00,000 particular humidity level. Should the humidity level surpass the normal operating normal operating parameters, 191 00:16:59,799 --> 00:17:04,319 you can either get a short circuit on the board or many other things, 192 00:17:04,839 --> 00:17:10,079 small errors that you would not even be able to assign to, I 193 00:17:10,079 --> 00:17:14,039 don't know, something like like an old operating system failure or anything like that. 194 00:17:14,559 --> 00:17:18,839 If one thing, one thing you will always find within a data center 195 00:17:18,279 --> 00:17:25,799 is an uninterruptable power supply. The power that comes from the grid for a 196 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:32,880 data center, while good to have it, it's it's not reliable enough and 197 00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:37,720 it's not clean enough in order to feed it directly to a server or a 198 00:17:37,759 --> 00:17:42,319 switch, for example. So all data centers will connect their utility to the 199 00:17:42,519 --> 00:17:48,480 uninterruptable power supply. The uninterruptable power supply is essentially a big set of batteries 200 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:56,279 that turns the AC current that comes in from the grid into DC current that 201 00:17:56,319 --> 00:18:03,480 can be eaten up directly by the servers and the Therefore, because as I 202 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,400 said, there is a skill also a skill shortage within within the industry, 203 00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:14,119 you do not have enough people to place them across all your facilities to ensure 204 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:18,720 real time monitoring. Therefore, one of the data that passes through as as 205 00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:23,599 as as as you pointed it out, most of it is going to be 206 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:29,720 related to remote management. And again, depending on the flavor of data center, 207 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:32,880 that is going to be different. A call location data center is going 208 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:37,440 to have totally different requirements to a hyper scale data center in terms of what 209 00:18:37,599 --> 00:18:41,000 needs to be managed and what doesn't need to be managed. So I would 210 00:18:41,039 --> 00:18:47,319 say I in a nutshell to sum up, most of this data is facility 211 00:18:47,319 --> 00:18:52,920 operating parameters and as soon as something goes already someone is able to see it 212 00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:56,359 and act upon it before the actual law is lost. So I'm not sure 213 00:18:56,359 --> 00:19:03,400 I understand here. You know you you said you're you're looking at this stuff. 214 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:10,880 The goal is uptime. You're looking at indicators of you know, potential 215 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:15,359 problems, especially with the power supply into the future. How far into the 216 00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:18,000 future can you see? I mean, if there's a lightning strike and a 217 00:19:18,039 --> 00:19:22,400 transformer blows out. We're talking near instantaneous. What what kind of visibility do 218 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:30,519 you have into that? Right, it's not necessarily about utmost of the utmost 219 00:19:30,559 --> 00:19:37,079 visibility on pretty much everything in the In the example that you've described, you 220 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,279 might have you might have outside of the grade space. For example, you 221 00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:47,519 might have data being pulled into from a weather station. If you're able to 222 00:19:47,519 --> 00:19:49,759 see that the storm is going to come and you know that the utility grid 223 00:19:49,799 --> 00:19:56,559 you're connected to is not that reliable, your switching mechanism, your power switching 224 00:19:56,599 --> 00:20:00,319 gear, for example, will detect that there has been a loss of load 225 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,359 on the utility and then it's going to switch that over to the on side 226 00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:11,640 backup generator, which is usually diesel. Obviously there are other other other fuels 227 00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:17,680 and the industry is exploring that massively right now. But yeah, another example 228 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:21,960 in here would be you're you're interested in those status changes more more like, 229 00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:26,440 if you know that you're running on the generator for the next seven hours, 230 00:20:26,519 --> 00:20:30,400 then you can think about do I have enough fuel to run that generator for 231 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:33,720 seven hours in order to not lose the load? What happens if that generator 232 00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:37,119 fails do I have another generator that I can switch switch the load too, 233 00:20:37,599 --> 00:20:41,839 and so on and so forth. When it comes to the cooling side of 234 00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:48,119 things, for example, you're always interested to keep to keep the operating parameters 235 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:53,200 in terms of humidity, temperature, and stuff like that within within quite close 236 00:20:53,319 --> 00:21:00,759 ranges in the in the white space. If humidity drops because your humidifier essentially 237 00:21:00,839 --> 00:21:07,599 died and you weren't notified you like the actual facility manager didn't receive another of 238 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:12,400 that Hey in data whole one, the humidifier is no longer firing. That 239 00:21:12,559 --> 00:21:18,920 over time can lead essentially to static discharges that might actually fry the motherboard of 240 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:23,640 a server and you don't know, like in a caucation environment, for example, 241 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:27,880 that server is owned by another company that essentially relies on you to keep 242 00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:33,359 it alive for them to be able to do business. So I would say 243 00:21:33,759 --> 00:21:38,759 that's that's kind of it in the sense that you're interested in those status changes. 244 00:21:38,799 --> 00:21:44,599 You're interested to get as much data fed into as possible, both from 245 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,880 the both from the infrastructure side of things, the server side of the white 246 00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,519 space side of things, and as well as that everything else that you can 247 00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,839 you can get your hands on as I said, there are a lot of 248 00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:00,160 data centers that are directly directly tied into other stations so that they are aware 249 00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:06,599 of pressure changes coming in the next two weeks, wind speeds and so on 250 00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:08,720 and so forth. There are other data centers, for example, that might 251 00:22:08,799 --> 00:22:15,119 have on site power generation, like a wind turbine, and they could technically 252 00:22:15,599 --> 00:22:18,240 make a conscious decision knowing that, hey, we're gonna have wind speeds of 253 00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:25,160 I don't know, thirteen thirty knots per hour next week. That essentially means 254 00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:30,839 that we can disconnect from the utility and run on wind power for x amount 255 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:34,119 of time and we're just gonna save x amount of X amount of dollars at 256 00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:40,880 the end of the day. Coming back to industrial cybersecurity, you know, 257 00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:45,519 to me, sort of the the the cyber threat we worry about. You 258 00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:48,039 know, if if everything's connected, well then everything's exposed. The bad guys 259 00:22:48,039 --> 00:22:52,559 can in principle get in and you know, turn off power flows. Uh, 260 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,640 you know, interrupt the the operation of the of the data center. 261 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:03,079 So let's let's swing back to industrial cybersecurity. How how are we preventing that? 262 00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:07,000 What's the you know, you teach people how to do OT security for 263 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,759 data centers. What do you teach them? I mean, essentially, I've 264 00:23:11,759 --> 00:23:15,559 always always said this, The answer to this is education, education, education. 265 00:23:17,279 --> 00:23:21,279 The contractors that are going to work within the contractors or engineers that are 266 00:23:21,319 --> 00:23:26,119 going to work within within the gray space because they do not have this this 267 00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:32,759 it mindset sort to say, or this cybersecurity mindset, they're not even aware 268 00:23:32,799 --> 00:23:37,079 that that that that might be an issue. So therefore it's it's classic stuff. 269 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:42,240 Really, it's stuff like have you checked what the remote login for that 270 00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:48,440 particular piece of equipment that you're just installed is? Have you changed the default 271 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,319 remote login? Oh? You haven't, it's still admint and one two three 272 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:53,880 four. Okay, if, for example, you bring a new piece of 273 00:23:55,160 --> 00:24:00,200 a new generator in and you do not cover that particular attack attack vector, 274 00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:07,720 what you can just imagine someone is even like again, and and threats can 275 00:24:07,799 --> 00:24:11,400 come in from both directions. They can come in from the inside from a 276 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,920 disgruntled employee, for example, or they can come in from the outside. 277 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,759 When it comes to when it comes to, as I said, like my 278 00:24:18,799 --> 00:24:23,400 previous previous example, you just got a new piece new generator in, but 279 00:24:23,599 --> 00:24:30,759 no one changed the no one changed the default default remote access credentials, someone 280 00:24:30,799 --> 00:24:36,200 could possibly go in put it in maintenance mode. Then something happens to the 281 00:24:36,279 --> 00:24:41,200 utility. The power switching mechanism tries to switch the utility, tries to switch 282 00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:48,119 the energy from the utility from the utility grid to the onside power generation and 283 00:24:48,319 --> 00:24:51,000 the generators in maintenance mode, so it's not going to accept the load, 284 00:24:51,279 --> 00:24:57,839 and you just lost the load. There's and again it's like ostensibly these professionals 285 00:24:59,079 --> 00:25:03,160 are the ones working within within the operational operation operational technology side, within the 286 00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:07,680 data center. They essentially just need to be aware that, hey, there's 287 00:25:07,799 --> 00:25:17,319 a thought of surface surface areas of attack. Just knowing which ones are going 288 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,519 to be immediately available to someone can essentially just just just make just make a 289 00:25:22,519 --> 00:25:27,079 total, total world of difference. Another thing that we we strongly strongly enforce 290 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,519 in in our series of e learning when it comes to when it comes to 291 00:25:30,519 --> 00:25:37,279 cybersecurity is if something like this, if you realize that, hey, this 292 00:25:37,319 --> 00:25:40,640 is this is a this is a surface area of attack that no one has 293 00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:45,559 thought through, raise it up with your manager, go go higher. Ensure 294 00:25:45,599 --> 00:25:48,960 that it is put in a standard operating procedure when installing a new generator, 295 00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:56,359 Ensure that to come back to my previous example, the default remote access credentials 296 00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:03,119 are changed and they are changed to something that fits with the cybersecurity policy for 297 00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:07,039 example, of or the password policy if you want, of the business. 298 00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:18,200 So what strikes me here is that this all sounds very familiar, you know, 299 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:23,160 patching passwords remote access systems. You know, don't be silly, don't 300 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:29,200 leave a default password on the remote access system. And you know, in 301 00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:33,440 a sense, maybe it's not surprising. It sounds a lot like what I 302 00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,920 see in other you know, standards and regulations like NERK SIP. NERK SIP 303 00:26:37,039 --> 00:26:41,880 is you know, North American critical infrastructive protection for the power grid. It's 304 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:48,039 all about ensuring reliability not of the data center, but of the power grid. 305 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:53,400 So yeah, very familiar. Focused on reliability. Begs the question if 306 00:26:53,400 --> 00:27:00,359 this is critical industry, not critical industrial, critical information infrastructure? Are there 307 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,400 regulations in the space? Are the regulations coming in the space? And and 308 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:08,640 this is what I asked that next, can we talk about regulations? I 309 00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,880 mean other industries. The TSA just came down with you know, new rules 310 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:18,160 for for petrochemical pipelines nine weeks after the Colonial incident. Similar rules just came 311 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,640 out from the TSA for rail systems, you know, passenger rail systems. 312 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,279 There's you know, been regulations for the power grid in North America forever. 313 00:27:29,319 --> 00:27:32,920 There's Miss two now over in Europe. You know, is any of this 314 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,720 affecting data centers? Are there? Are there? Are there cybersecurity regulations for 315 00:27:37,799 --> 00:27:41,240 data centers? They definitely are. I would say I would say that, 316 00:27:41,319 --> 00:27:47,119 I mean one of our cyber our old cybersecurity track came was born of a 317 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:52,519 need in uh For example, in in the US, if you're part of 318 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:59,839 the state of New York since twenty eighteen, if you have a facility then 319 00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:07,720 houses any sort of financial information. The engineers working within that facility are required 320 00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:15,640 to demonstrate cybersecurity training and refreshers every six months. That's just one example when 321 00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:22,480 it comes to when it comes to regulations in general, regulations have gotten kind 322 00:28:22,519 --> 00:28:26,720 of like how should bothers have gone? Have kicked into gears? Specifically, 323 00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:33,240 after the COVID pandemic. During the pandemic, data center technicians were essentially classified 324 00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:37,680 as essential workers. And that was kind of the very first time when data 325 00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:45,079 centers came to the four in the public public mind, they were they were 326 00:28:45,119 --> 00:28:49,160 the things that essentially allowed us to continue working, working in the conditions like 327 00:28:49,359 --> 00:28:55,119 from home and working remotely and keeping in touch with people when we couldn't physically 328 00:28:55,119 --> 00:29:00,799 do that. Therefore, after every after that's settled, a lot of people 329 00:29:00,799 --> 00:29:06,400 started realizing, oh my god, these facilities use a lot of power without 330 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,799 everyone actually thinking, I also use a lot of digital services. So regulations 331 00:29:11,799 --> 00:29:15,759 are now Regulations are now coming to the four in the sense that trying to 332 00:29:18,319 --> 00:29:26,160 essentially from the design stage in force a sustainable and energy efficient design for legacy 333 00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:32,119 data centers. They will be required soon within the European Union, for example, 334 00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:38,680 they will be required to share and make public the power usage efficiency of 335 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:45,039 one of the several several metrics actually, one of which is power usage efficiency, 336 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:51,039 which essentially calculates how much power you need to run the facility versus how 337 00:29:51,119 --> 00:29:53,960 much power you need to run just the I load. The closer you are 338 00:29:55,119 --> 00:29:59,839 to one of a pee, the more efficient you are. Obviously, that 339 00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:03,559 doesn't apply to every single type of data center, because if you are to 340 00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,000 implement linquid cooling in your data center, your period is going to go up 341 00:30:08,319 --> 00:30:11,640 there, but you're still going to use less resources. So there's this like 342 00:30:12,079 --> 00:30:17,720 the regulation the regulation landscape. In a way, I feel like regulators are 343 00:30:17,759 --> 00:30:22,119 still trying to map their way through through the industry. But when it comes 344 00:30:22,119 --> 00:30:30,319 to cybersecurity, cybersecurity regulation beyond everything that's already out there when it comes out, 345 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,359 not to like payment processing systems pc id s s and so on and 346 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:38,039 so forth. For data centers, there's all that, and then there's another 347 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:45,400 level, and the level that will that level will be dictated by the type 348 00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:48,920 of data that you house and store. As I started when I when I 349 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,519 answered this question in New York, for example, they are life simple. 350 00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,640 This is going to be the law going forward. We need people to be 351 00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:02,359 aware that cybersecurity is some thing that needs to be of paramount importance, front 352 00:31:02,359 --> 00:31:07,000 and center into every professional's mind, regardless if they work in a mission critical 353 00:31:07,039 --> 00:31:11,599 capacity or not. Now, as time went on, other states in the 354 00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:15,200 US have also essentially just copied this particular law, and we're seeing it. 355 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:22,359 We're seeing it spread out as well. So the regulations are changing. But 356 00:31:22,599 --> 00:31:27,000 you know, data centers, you know, unlike many other kinds of of 357 00:31:27,039 --> 00:31:32,160 sort of very conservative industrial processes, data centers are way out on the bleeding 358 00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:37,480 edge of almost everything. What else is happening in the data center space? 359 00:31:37,559 --> 00:31:44,039 What what new is coming down the pipe here? That's that That again a 360 00:31:44,119 --> 00:31:48,480 very good question. And if we go back to to my to my to 361 00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:52,720 my introduction, is this what's happening is the reason that I'm not going to 362 00:31:52,839 --> 00:31:57,440 change industries anytime soon because right now we as as as I mentioned previously, 363 00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:04,559 with the advent of AI, we need to we need to find more smarter 364 00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,440 ways of smarter ways of building data centers, and more efficient and sustainable ways 365 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:14,480 of building data centers. One of the main gripes everyone has with the data 366 00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:19,400 center facility is the amount of power they use. That is not to say 367 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,799 that they are. There are and data centers out there, for example, 368 00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:29,759 that are completely independent of the grid or even better, using renewable, renewable 369 00:32:30,119 --> 00:32:36,359 renewable power sources, created their own microgroup microgrid that feeds back surplus energy into 370 00:32:36,359 --> 00:32:40,799 the grid. We have no right now, We've got we've helped people testing 371 00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:47,839 the idea of having small nuclear reactors on site to completely disconnect from the utility 372 00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:53,960 and not not even rely on the utility per se. We were seeing, 373 00:32:54,079 --> 00:33:01,640 we're seeing more innovative ways of handling your coinings system for example, oil and 374 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:07,279 gas. Oil and gas is a massive, massive use user of supercomputing. 375 00:33:07,559 --> 00:33:14,240 And when we're talking about supercomputers, we currently the way the way we approach 376 00:33:14,279 --> 00:33:16,440 supercomputers is, hey, we just put a bunch of computers together and ask 377 00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:22,519 them to do the same thing now for better or for words, that is 378 00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:30,440 a data center. When it comes to highly intensive processing tasks such as the 379 00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:37,359 determining determining the depth and the type of material and the design of an oil 380 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:43,039 well for example, or where on particular oil oil lake or oil field is 381 00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:47,240 when it comes to when it comes to going deep underground, these are highly 382 00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:52,880 highly intensive tasks and because they are highly intensive tasks, they will require graphical 383 00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,079 processing units. Because they require graphical processing units, the temperatures that you need 384 00:33:57,119 --> 00:34:01,119 to work with to go through the roof, because a GPU is essentially geared 385 00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:07,960 toward to work in normal operating conditions that around ninety degrees centigrade. When you 386 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:13,639 get when you have thousands of these, it becomes a problem. Air can 387 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:22,119 only can only work up to I would say around twenty kilodes per rack if 388 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:27,639 that, but then if we look at liquid or dielectric fluids, they can 389 00:34:27,639 --> 00:34:34,880 handle much more so what happened what happened with Because within DCD we also have 390 00:34:35,039 --> 00:34:38,519 within within the Center Dynamics, we also have an awards series where pretty much 391 00:34:38,519 --> 00:34:45,000 everyone from from the industry submits submits their latest and greatest designs. And one 392 00:34:45,039 --> 00:34:50,639 that really caught my eye was a single phased emotion cooling data center which was 393 00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:55,519 built in Texas, but it was built by an Australian company. Essentially, 394 00:34:55,559 --> 00:35:00,760 what they did they took your classic rack that hosts servers and switches, put 395 00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:06,639 it on the side and effectively created an emotion tub. They filled that emotion 396 00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:13,440 tub with dielectric fluid in a closed loop system that dielectric and then the servers 397 00:35:13,639 --> 00:35:16,719 and well, because they only did it for the servers, the servers were 398 00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:22,159 tunked horizontally vertically, sorry not horizontally, they go horizontal in a normal rack. 399 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:29,880 Servers were tunked vertically with absolutely nothing on them, so all the casing 400 00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,159 was out, the fans were out, and the processor was in direct contact 401 00:35:34,159 --> 00:35:37,679 with the dielectric fluid. Being in direct contact with the direct dielectric fluid, 402 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:43,760 it was able to cool it at a march with much greater efficiencies, using 403 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:49,840 way way less energy. In order to achieve those efficiencies. So that's the 404 00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:57,400 thing. It's like we are in a moment of I would say extreme innovation, 405 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:04,800 simply because every single data center professional looks ahead and realizes that this is 406 00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,840 not going to change anytime soon. Simply like we our need of as a 407 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:15,559 society of digital services is only going to increase. Therefore, we're only going 408 00:36:15,639 --> 00:36:19,880 to need more data centers. We just need to get smarter at building them 409 00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:25,639 in a more efficient and sustainable way. So I'd say that's the main thing 410 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,480 going forward with with data centers. Everyone is looking for a paradigm shift in 411 00:36:30,639 --> 00:36:38,599 how to build and operate in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. You 412 00:36:38,639 --> 00:36:43,840 know, earlier in the in the episode lad was you know, I asked 413 00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:49,719 him about safety and reliability, and he focused it on reliability right away as 414 00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:54,079 sort of the big priority here. But when we're talking about nuclear generators on 415 00:36:54,159 --> 00:36:58,199 site, you know, I have to wonder if if you know, safety 416 00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,039 isn't gonna isn't going to come back into the equation in a big way in 417 00:37:00,119 --> 00:37:07,360 the future. You know, I worked in not a data center. I 418 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:12,639 mean I worked in the university data center full of supercomputers. This was thirty 419 00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,199 years ago. Back then, there were safety concerns in the data center. 420 00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:20,000 I mean, obviously, when you have large amounts of power, you've just 421 00:37:20,039 --> 00:37:22,079 got to be careful what you touched that you you don't get fried. That's 422 00:37:22,079 --> 00:37:29,840 a safety concern. But you know, in some of these data centers, 423 00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:31,039 and now I don't know if this is still the case, but back in 424 00:37:31,079 --> 00:37:37,800 the day, some of the data centers did not have oxygen atmospheres. If 425 00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:43,840 you were in there when the fire suppressive atmosphere was pumped into it, you'd 426 00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:45,400 asphyxiate. You. You know, you had to have safety training just to 427 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:50,440 set foot in these wretched places because you know, most of the time they 428 00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,920 were filled with an atmosphere that had no oxygen, so no fires could start. 429 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,840 So you didn't want to be in there when when the oxygen or when 430 00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:01,760 the when the atmosphere changed. So you know, again, what struck me 431 00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:07,000 about about the automation and the cybersecurity concerns here, you know, is that 432 00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:13,320 they seem very familiar, and it sounds like in the future might even become 433 00:38:13,639 --> 00:38:19,360 you know, even more familiar as as these designs, you know, uh, 434 00:38:20,119 --> 00:38:24,039 move more towards a space where there are additional safety concerns on top of 435 00:38:24,119 --> 00:38:28,440 the the you know, the the top of mind reliability concerns that that all 436 00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:34,840 critical infrastructures have. Well, that's quite the vision for the future of data 437 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:37,960 centers. It's it's obviously a field that's evolving very quickly. But you know, 438 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:43,440 coming back to cybersecurity on on the security issue for data centers, what 439 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,320 what are the main takeaways? What what what should we what should we be 440 00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:51,480 thinking about for the industrial side of the data center. Yeah, I mean 441 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,480 it's the way the way that I see it. It's it's quite quite simple. 442 00:38:55,719 --> 00:39:01,280 As it's part of as data center's part of the mission critical it's a 443 00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:07,559 mission critical industry. Downtime can downtime needs to be avoided at all costs. 444 00:39:07,079 --> 00:39:13,280 So I would say, first and foremost is the old adage that we like 445 00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,599 in this industry is education, education, education, Make your professionals, make 446 00:39:16,639 --> 00:39:21,800 your engineers aware of the fact that this is even a possibility. Most of 447 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,280 them are not going to be aware. You will protect your IT I equipment 448 00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:29,599 or your WHY space. You will protect the from a cybersecurity point of view 449 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:34,400 in as as best as you can, simply because you're going to have the 450 00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,360 people that are able to understand this landscape, whereas in the gray space, 451 00:39:37,519 --> 00:39:43,960 you the professionals working in there have a totally different background and therefore are not 452 00:39:44,079 --> 00:39:47,320 even aware of that this this, this is a possibility. So I would 453 00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:53,079 say, yeah, just education, education, education always always ensure that they 454 00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:59,280 know this is a possibility, they understand the repercussions of this, and as 455 00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,280 well as that they know what to report if something goes already, if something 456 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,000 looks odd, they know how to report it up. And as I said 457 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:15,039 previously, ensure that if an event happens or if something if a particular, 458 00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:21,000 if a particular cyber security incident has taken place, that the steps to avoid 459 00:40:21,039 --> 00:40:27,960 that are embedded in the standard operating procedure of that particular facility. And yeah, 460 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,960 I mean, if you're more curious about the world of data centers, 461 00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:36,320 just visit our website data Center that hours dot com. That's where you're going 462 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:42,360 to find in their features on pretty much every every every subject, the subject 463 00:40:42,599 --> 00:40:45,440 matter within the industry. That's where you're going to find video interviews, That's 464 00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:51,239 where you're going to find the training division, which I'm responsible for. And 465 00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,639 yeah, the world of data centers is a wonderful thing, and I wish 466 00:40:53,679 --> 00:41:01,000 more people would be aware of it. Andrew, clearly education is important in 467 00:41:01,039 --> 00:41:05,760 this space. But I'm wondering if there are any other takeaways that you got 468 00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:08,400 from this episode. Yeah, well, you know, the thing that struck 469 00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:15,320 me is that a lot of these systems, a lot of the concerns about 470 00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:20,119 cybersecurity, they're very familiar to anybody, you know, involved in any other 471 00:41:20,199 --> 00:41:24,000 kind of industrial cybersecurity operation, in particular with the you know, the fact 472 00:41:24,039 --> 00:41:30,000 that this is critical industrial or sorry, critical informational infrastructure, and you know, 473 00:41:30,039 --> 00:41:35,840 there's such a focus on reliability. I'm I'm reminded of the NERK zip 474 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,840 standards, which are also very focused on reliability. You know, some of 475 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,960 the measures he talks about, you know, teaching people about seemed familiar there. 476 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:50,960 And unlike you know, the power industry where you know, power uses 477 00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,800 is increasing a couple of percent per year worldwide, it's sort of it's a 478 00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:59,719 mature industry. Unlike that, the data center industry strikes me as still in 479 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,960 its infancy. I mean, for I don't know what is it now, 480 00:42:04,039 --> 00:42:07,760 fifty years we've been everything has had more and more computers in it. Data 481 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,199 centers have sprung up with more and more computers in the more and more data 482 00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,039 centers. This is a growth industry. We're going to continue automating business. 483 00:42:15,039 --> 00:42:19,039 We're going to continue automating everything. There's always going to be more computers, 484 00:42:19,039 --> 00:42:21,639 there's always going to be more data centers, is what it sounds like. 485 00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:28,679 And the field needs expertise and experience professionals, so yes, we need education. 486 00:42:29,119 --> 00:42:34,000 I'm wondering if there isn't an opportunity here for industrial cybersecurity people from other 487 00:42:34,079 --> 00:42:37,199 industries, for example, the power industry, the power sector where it's a 488 00:42:37,199 --> 00:42:42,000 mature industry. I wonder if there's an opportunity for some of these professionals to 489 00:42:42,039 --> 00:42:46,719 switch fields and to make an impact in a growth industry. All right, 490 00:42:47,039 --> 00:42:51,840 Well, thanks to Vlad Gabriel on Health for speaking with you, Andrew. 491 00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,079 And Andrew is always thank you for speaking with me. It's always a pleasure. 492 00:42:55,079 --> 00:43:00,480 Thank you, Nate. This has been the Industrial Security Podcast from Waterfall. 493 00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:13,400 Thanks to everyone out there listening. M HM